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Reevely video: What John Baird wants is what Ottawa gets

Author of the article:

David Reevely

Publishing date:

November 6, 2014 • 3 minute read

John Baird, Member of Parliament for Ottawa West–Nepean and Minister responsible for the National Capital Commission, announces a Carling Ave land lease to the Ottawa Hospital for a future hospital campus, November 03, 2014. (Jean Levac/ Ottawa Citizen)Jean Levac/ Ottawa Citizen

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How Agriculture Canada went from adamantly opposing the surrender of Experimental Farm land for a hospital in 2008 to meekly agreeing in 2014 can be summed up in one sentence: What John Baird wants, John Baird gets.

There he was Monday, announcing that The Ottawa Hospital could have 60 acres of the Central Experimental Farm for a new campus. He’s not the local MP, not the agriculture minister. But he is the senior federal minister for Ottawa, and what he wants makes all the difference.

Reevely video: What John Baird wants is what Ottawa getsBack to video

The hospital publicly raised the possibility of using land on the farm for a new building six years ago. Absolutely not, Agriculture Canada replied immediately. It would be like building a hotel on Parliament Hill, the department’s director of real estate, Michel Falardeau, said at the time. The department would object, the National Capital Commission would object, the advisory committee informing decisions about the Experimental Farm would object.

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“In this situation, it’s very clear it would change the nature of the farm,” Falardeau told the Citizen then. “They would reject it.”

Falardeau’s still in the job, but the department’s opinion has reversed completely. I asked Agriculture Canada what’s happened in the past six years to change people’s minds.

Here’s the answer, in its entirety, from a spokesman: “The Government of Canada has made the decision to release 60 acres of the Central Experimental Farm to the NCC to enable the future construction of a new facility for The Ottawa Hospital. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the NCC support the change of use of the land to support other interests, including health care, infrastructure and the economy.”

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The farm’s advisory committee wasn’t asked.

Consider how the NCC’s Rockcliffe Parkway became the Sir George-Étienne Cartier Parkway last summer. Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger, through whose riding the parkway runs, filed a formal inquiry about it and got a written answer in the House of Commons last week.

“On July 8, 2014, the Minister of Foreign Affairs” — Baird, that is — “wrote to the chair of the commission on behalf of the Government of Canada asking the commission to consider renaming the Rockcliffe Parkway the ‘Sir George-Étienne Cartier Parkway’,” the response to Bélanger’s question says. “After discussion, the NCC board of directors voted in favour of the renaming of the parkway.”

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They did no consultations. The vote was on a teleconference, which is an ordinary way for the NCC board to conduct business, says spokesman Jean Wolff. They do it “from time to time,” he says, “more often than one might think.” There was a rush, Wolff says, because Sept. 6 was the 200th anniversary of Cartier’s birth.

They had Ottawa-Orléans MP Royal Galipeau announce it on Cartier’s birthday. Done.

Giving a parkway a historic label is pretty innocuous, even if it is part of a clear campaign to put specifically Conservative names on things. It’s not the same as shearing off a chunk of protected federal land and opening it for development, however worthy the project. Or killing a major light-rail project, as Baird managed to do in 2006.

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There is something to be said for doing things this way.

The farm’s defenders say we should have a broader civic discussion about what the future of the land should be. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that and come out with a consensus about what to do with 1,000 acres of historic agricultural research land in the middle of the city?

That wouldn’t happen, any more than it would have happened if we’d talked about the future of Lansdowne Park for a decade. Sometimes people disagree, and the people on the losing side will always complain about having been steamrollered. A longer discussion just gives them more time to do it.

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This can go really wrong. Mayor Jim Watson tried it a couple of times with different ideas about putting a casino in Ottawa before discovering the idea was really, really unpopular, something a proper consultation would have shown him. Or it can go right, as with the National Gallery’s decision to put up a sculpture of a giant spider on Sussex Drive. Can you imagine if they’d asked what people thought first?

Baird has made a bet that the hospital is more like a spider than a casino. He’s probably right. What it means for the rest of the farm is a problem for another day.

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